Metered postage is a significant source of revenue for the United States Postal Service (USPS). Metered postage is generated by utilizing postage meters that print a special mark, also known as postal indicia, on mail pieces. Generally, printing postage or any value-bearing items (VBI) may be accomplished with mechanical meters or computer-based systems.
With respect to computer-based postage processing systems, the USPS under the information-based indicia program (IBIP) has published specifications for IBIP postage meters. The IBIP involves the development of new technology to produce new forms of postage. In so-called PC postage systems, a user can purchase postage credit, and print the postage in the form of PC postage onto a label or directly onto a mail piece. The PC postage includes a human readable portion, an indicia graphic and a two dimensional barcode portion. The human readable portion includes the postage value, mail class, the date, the meter number, the licensing post office that a user registered with, an optional logo and optionally also the destination zip code (required for business courtesy mail pieces.) The barcode portion is intended to help thwart fraud, and includes information about the mail piece including the destination ZIP code, the amount of postage applied, the date and time the postage was applied, the meter number and a digital signature so that the USPS can validate the authenticity of the postage.
The USPS mail automation process utilizes various scanning machines when sorting the mail. Therefore, postage indicia must be printed in a prescribed manner to permit the mail handling and optical reading equipment to properly interpret the PC postage and addressee information. Indeed, the USPS has established strict guidelines directed to the margins, label sizes, and placement of the postage indicia, as well as the size, placement, and other characteristics of the POSTNET (POStal Numeric Encoding Technique) bar codes, and any facing identification mark (FIM) on mail pieces. These guidelines are contained in the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) and Title 39, Code of Federal Register (CFR), Part 111, and USPS Publication No. 25 “Designing Letter Mail”.
To ensure that a mail piece can be properly scanned, the mail piece needs to be oriented in a pre-defined manner. Proper orientation of the mail piece is facilitated by means of a FIM barcode or a phosphorescent strip, one of which should be included on each piece of automated mail. However, a FIM in the form of a phosphorescent strip typically requires the use of a specialized envelope or label, since standard printers are unable to print a phosphorescent strip. Referring to FIG. 1, a FIM barcode 8 on the other hand, is simply a pattern of vertical bars printed in the upper right area of a mail piece. Advantageously, the FIM barcode may be printed using the ink from a standard ink jet or laser jet printer. Therefore, indicia-based postage can penetrate the mainstream mass-market more easily with a FIM barcode solution.
A FIM barcode is essentially a nine-bit code consisting of bars and spaces (no-bar place holders) in which the bars corresponding to a binary one and spaces correspond to a binary zero. The FIM barcode 8 allows scanning machines to determine the orientation of individual mail pieces and the corners of both sides of the mail piece. Once the scanner has determined where the FIM barcode is on the mail piece, the mail piece may be re-oriented so that the scanner can properly read the delivery information.
The aforementioned USPS guidelines require the FIM pattern to be printed in a FIM clear zone, in which no other printing appears. The FIM clear zone is defined as a rectangular zone extending downwardly 0.625″ from the upper edge of the mail piece and between 3.0″ and 1.75″ from the right hand edge of the mail piece.
The guidelines further require the bars in the FIM barcode to be 0.625″±0.125″ high and 0.03125″±0.008″ wide. Referring to FIG. 2, the rightmost bar of the FIM barcode should be 2″±0.125″ from the right edge of the mail piece. The top of the bars in the FIM barcode should be no lower than 0.125″ from the top of the mail piece and the bottom of the FIM bars should touch the bottom edge of the FIM clear zone but must not be more than 0.125″ above or below that edge.
Standard printers typically do not support print margins of 0.125″ or less. If an envelope is fed to a printer long edge first, the distance from the FIM barcode to the edge is determined by the top margin of the print job created by the printer, which is typically well in excess of 0.125″ on standard ink jet and laser jet printers. Similarly, if an envelope is fed to a printer short edge first, the distance from the FIM to the edge of the envelope is still determined by the top margin of the printer because the printer prints the envelope in landscape mode. Again, the top margin is typically greater than 0.125″ on most printers Short edge feed is shown in the following diagram., the distance from the FIM barcode to the edge is determined by either the left or right side margin of the printer, which is also typically well in excess of 0.125″ on most printers.
The inability of most printers to comply with the tolerances set forth for FIM barcode location in the USPS automation system may require printing indicia based postage onto labels and/or envelopes with the FIM barcode pre-printed onto them. Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide a method and system for printing text or graphics within tight edge constraints for use in postage systems that use a printer to print indicia-based postage.